Before
you review the statement of Vin Suprynowicz linked to in Stephen
Kinsella's blog entry at C4SIF, let
me say a few words on the topic of libertarianism, and property
rights theories.Vin
Suprynowicz, is a so-called "libertarian" writer for the
Las Vegas Review-Journal, that I usually enjoy reading very
much, but in this case he shows his glaring lack of understanding of
property rights theory.

Modern American libertarians are in a
nutshell, a new breed of anarchist, but not anarchists of the
traditional social anarchist tradition, we are anarchists that came
to stateless conclusions from very different
philosophical/foundational ideas. We are anarchists that were not
influenced by thinkers like Karl Marx, or Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, but
rather followed the classical liberal ideas of people like John
Locke, Frederic Bastiat, Gustav De Molinari, etc... to their obvious
logical conclusion, that mankind does not need a predatory, ruling,
aristocratic class to micro-manage society and peaceful human action.
We have concluded that if free, peaceful, people find it necessary to
organize in order to provide for their own mutual security, and
general welfare, that they are perfectly able to do this voluntarily
without resorting to the formation of a traditional coercive,
monopoloid nation State, or arbitrarily imposed hierarchical
authority. So in short the modern, principled, American libertarian
is merely a new breed of propertarian anarchist.

Now that I have offered up my basic
definition of what I mean by the term “libertarian,” I will
attempt to address the topic of property.

What is property?

Though I think it is wise for people
that wish to live peacefully amongst each other to come to some
mutually agreed upon standard of respected private property rights, I
do not believe there is, or ever can be a single, absolute, objective
definition or standard for private property. Property is merely a
social construct. It is an agreed upon, normative “OUGHT,” not an
objective “IS,” in the way that two plus two IS four. What kind
of property standard people choose to adopt will determine how
peacefully, and civilly those people will be able to live amongst
each other. For example if a group of people choose to treat human
beings as resources that can be homesteaded, and owned in the same
way that a parcel of land is homesteaded and owned, that society has
adopted a property standard that is going to lead to some very
unpleasant interpersonal relationships. I hope we can all understand
that not all things are wise, or reasonable to see as open to
appropriation, and by rejecting the notion that some things are open
to appropriation, one is not rejecting the utility of all private
property schemes. If one believes that it is wise to subscribe to a
private property scheme in order to establish and respect rights in
tangible materials, as the only feasible means of avoiding conflict
over the use of tangible materials, they cannot then logically and
consistently enforce an exclusive rights scheme over others ability
to carry out certain peaceful acts with the tangible material that
they are said to own.

I submit that it is wise for people to
limit their adoption of private property standards only to justly
acquired LAND, MATTER, and movable or immovable objects, NOT ACTIONS.
There is a name for an interpersonal relationship wherein one person
has involuntary, sovereign authority over the peaceful actions of
another. This relationship is called SLAVERY.

Can the right
to certain types of free human action be logically enclosed for
exclusive, private use in the same way that unowned matter from
nature is often respected as having been appropriated for exclusive,
private use? Can one ever be logically seen as having an exclusive
right to walk a certain way, sing a certain arraignment of words,
sell letters and words arraigned and expressed in a certain way on
paper, etc?

If I discover a new way to arrange
words that tells an interesting story, do I automatically have a
natural right to use any means necessary (even potentially lethal
means) to stop another from imitating me, assembling words the same
way I did, and selling them expressed on paper in the form of a book?

If you can't tell by now, I'm talking
about a supposed form of property called “intellectual property,”
that is patents, copyrights, trademarks, etc... The way I see it, and
to the surprise of many, the way Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, and
many other classical liberal, and libertarian thinkers also saw it,
ideas, formulas, writings, recipes, designs, trademarks, and other
informational, conceptual abstractions, cannot be seen as justly
appropriated property in the same way that a homesteaded parcel of
land can be.

The best justification I am aware of
for the private appropriation of land, is the fact that humans all
need some place to exist, and a portion of the natural world to claim
as their own in order to support their lives and provide for their
needs. If a group of people wish to subscribe to a property, or
anti-property standard(if such a thing is even possible) wherein
people are not allowed to privatize such things for their own
personal use, they have devised a system that will be fraught with
unceasing conflict over these resources because in order for me to
exist in any given space, I HAVE to exclude all other people from
existing in that space. In order for one to live on a piece of land,
and have any reasonable ability to shape that land for their own
uses, they HAVE to exclude others from interfering with their use. In
order to eat a grape, I MUST exclude all others from eating that
grape because two people cannot eat the same grape.

Ideas, formulas, writings, recipes, designs, trademarks, methods
and other informational, conceptual abstractions do not work the same
way, they do not have the same limitations on their use, they are not
finite, scarce, or rivalrous, because “they” do not even exist
physically, and therefore do not have the ontological limitations of
tangible material. If I think to walk to the park, that does not
interfere with your ability to walk to the park, I have not used up,
or consumed the action of walking to the park. Likewise if I apply
ink to paper, in the form of the novel “Atlas Shrugged,” and put
my material ink and paper property up for sale, I am not interfering
with Leonard Peikoff's(the “owner” of the fiat legal “rights”
to Rands novels) ability to do the same thing. I did not devise the
story “Atlas Shrugged,” Ayn Rand did, but I don't see how nature,
logic, deductive reasoning, etc would suggest that my printing the
same story on my paper, with my ink, is not my right being the owner
of that paper and ink. You may correctly point out that some people
may choose to buy from me instead of a Leonard Peikoff approved
source, which would affect his likelihood of successfully selling his
copies, but this is no different than any other form of competition,
either competition justifies retaliatory action to punish and
discourage it, or it does not. It should be self evident that A free
marketeer would not conclude that peaceful competitive action
justifies retaliatory action to punish or discourage it, this is the
antithesis of free market theories.

In closing I will summarize all the
above philosophical jargon by saying this. If Leonard Peikoff, Vin
Suprynowicz, or any other patent, copyright, etc, holder has
the legitimate, exclusive right to allow, or disallow the sale of ink
and paper in the form of the novel “Atlas Shrugged,” or any other
form, then they also have a shared property right in all mater in the
universe, even the bodies of other people, because if this is the
case that they have this right to veto others choices to act in a
peaceful manner, that means that these other people are owned, are
not sovereign over their own peaceful actions, and do not fully own
their material property.

If intellectual property law is NOT
compatible with material property law, one must subscribe to one, or
the other, or at least must subjugate one to the other in some sort
of hierarchy of rights scheme.

If property rights claims over
conceptual abstractions are legitimate, then individual sovereignty,
and property rights in material resources are extremely limited
because patent office records are an ever growing list of millions
and millions of things that individuals are not at liberty to do with
their material property, and with their bodies, and IP is somehow a
justified form of soft, limited, fascist, mercantilist, slavery.
Either this is the case or so-called “Intellectual Property” is
NOT justifiable by way of consistent, logical, deductive reasoning.

Real libertarians reject the concept of
intellectual property, and other forms of coercive monopoly
privilege. Only Randian subjectivists, and other right and left wing
statists subscribe to the contradictory concept of intellectual
property.